


i love you in autumn

by thepromise



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 22:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17455796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepromise/pseuds/thepromise
Summary: It's a chilly autumn afternoon in 1986, in which Mike and El decide to cozy up together. Warning: lots of fluff ahead.





	i love you in autumn

**Author's Note:**

> i got a surge of inspiration last night and hastily wrote this because i missed mileven (don't we all?) and i always headcanon them being super soft and cuddly. apologies if it's too short/not perfect!
> 
> **this is a oneshot set in the canon world**

 

 

El shifts and sniffles ever-so-lightly in Mike’s arms. It makes Mike smile, and he lifts a pale hand to tuck a stray brown lock behind her ear.

 

Up in Mike’s bedroom underneath the soft duvet of the bottom bunk, that’s where they were. Sleeves of a knit green sweater covered the boy’s arms that draped across El’s small waist. She wore a flannel of Hopper’s that was far too big for her, rolled up at the sleeves and slipping off the pale shoulder where her short hair met.

 

She was so delicate. Mike Wheeler just wanted to keep El Hopper in his arms for eternity until a star much larger than Earth decides to swallow them up (even then, he can’t help but think that he would  _ still  _ find her). Away from the cold autumn air that bit at her soft, rosy cheeks, away from the side-eyes and snarls of other kids their age because El was  _ different _ , away from the curious questions about her past, the  _ lab. _

 

Mike shudders every time he thinks about El’s past in the lab. Here he has a girl in his arms, breathing against his chest softly, who has seen more with her eyes than any fifteen-year-old should ever have to. 

 

_ Lifeless, white brick walls. Bare feet against cold, hard floors. Small bedroom. No pillows. No blankets. Torn, ratty hospital gown. Shaved head. Obliged rules. Stripped of rights. Stripped of any contact with the outside world. Stripped of mother. Stripped of childhood. Stripped of name. 011, a number. She was just a number. _

 

Mike pulled El closer to him, running his fingers through her hair. She sighed and grinned against the soft cotton smell of his sweater, which was just his smell in general. “Mikey?” Her voice was raspy and sweet like honey, and it resonated in Mike’s heart.

 

“Yes?” His voice merely came out in a throaty whisper. El tilts her head back to look at him, big brown eyes filled with pure content. Mike loves her. He couldn’t imagine a universe in which he didn’t love her. In fact, looking at the small specks of hazel and amber in her eyes, he could almost see every universe in which they would always be together. Mike and El. El and Mike.

 

Her soft pink lips opened for a moment, hesitated, then closed. “Nothing.” Her delicate hand reached up from resting in between the both of them, then began weaving and threading through Mike’s thick, inky hair. The blue yarn bracelet Hopper had given her at thirteen remained on her small wrist, a warm and comforting reminder that she was safe now. That the bad people were gone.

 

And Mike realized in that moment that they didn’t have to speak. Cozy limbs intertwined and comfortable silence was fine.

 

Because the words didn’t need to be spoken. They both already knew it, like a mental pinky promise shared between them, and them only.

 

I love you.

  
  


 


End file.
